Thread: Inerrancy and Christianity - uneasy bedfellows? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.


To visit this thread, use this URL:
http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=70;t=028560
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
This new thread here has been stimulated by this one in Purgatory.

Like many of us around here, I guess, some of my best friends are inerrantists. And the great majority of them are kindly, charitable, faithful, humble people, not at all given to beating others over the head with the Bible to make or prove a point. They give every evidence of loving God, and their neighbour as themselves.

But there are others for whom the inerrantist hermeneutic becomes a club. When that club gets flailed around, "Truth" (or a particular version of it) seems to overtakes Love.

A further consequence of this seems to be that "Truth" (or a particular inerrantist version of it) can get used to argue against Creeds, very generally accepted mainstream theology, and "things that Christians have generally believed". (You'll notice I've avoided the term Tradition!)

With that preamble, I thought it might be worth exploring in DH two particular questions, from the POV and experience of Shipmates.

1. The impact of inerrancy on mainstream Christian theology. Good, bad, indifferent?

2. The impact of inerrancy on relationships with others. Good, bad, indifferent?

I've discussed with DH Hosts and we've agreed to start the thread here (they haven't seen it BTW). But it may turn Purgish - or I guess it may be too general!

Anyway, here is your starter for 10!
 
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on :
 
Agreeing with Barnabas' preamble my comment on his two questions is Both Bad.

When it comes to theology inerrancy means that all further insights (and truths) are precluded since the "Truth" has been given once, for all. It effectively fossilises Truth and makes nonsense of Jesus' promise that the Holy Spirit will lead us into all truth".

(This does not stop inerrantists disagree vehemently amongst themselves as to whose interpretation of the inerrant text is right. In fact the gulf between them is sometimes as wide as that between them and ultra liberals.)

When it comes to relationships then Barnabas is right. Truth becomes more important than love; tolerance flies out of the window and becomes a kind of swear word. Relationships become adverserial.

Both bad.
 
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 
1. The impact of inerrancy on mainstream Christian theology. Good, bad, indifferent?

Bad - because it stops people thinking for themselves and causes some crazy convoluted explanations for bigotry.

2. The impact of inerrancy on relationships with others. Good, bad, indifferent?

Bad - because attitudes and ideas get stuck in the past.
 
Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on :
 
When you replace the 'Word' (the creative, communicative principle of God incarnate) with the 'word' (language invented and recorded by men) you lose a lot. Jesus is the living Word of God, the double-edged sword. The fossilised text can, and often is, an idol for some Christians. It's put on a pedestal and treated as divine. When you place a book, however sacred, in front of the living God, it becomes more important what God said to people thousands of years ago, than what He is saying to us today.
 
Posted by Woodworm (# 13798) on :
 
I am in no way an inerrant-ist. In fact it makes me cringe.

But isn't this issue about the extent to which you can interpret scripture, update it, or leave it behind? About where you draw the line between "the bible says" and "the spirit leads me"? If you cut the tether of belief in Biblical inerrancy, don't you risk the balloon of faith floating off in pretty well any direction the winds might blow? This is something to struggle with.

So I wouldn't put inerrancy vs.not inerrant in terms of bad vs good. It is one of those tensions in Christianity that makes it so creative.
 
Posted by sanityman (# 11598) on :
 
I don't want to be part of a huge pile-on here (much [Biased] ), but I'd be interested in anyone who could explain how inerrantists come to the conclusion in the first place? It can't be from the bible, even 1 Tim 3:16 (the "other" 3:16!). Indeed, I would have thought that logic to be so self-evidently circular that the fact that it's regularly trotted out in this type of debate shows that they don't have any better arguments.

The other (perhaps more unspoken) one seems to be that God "must have" given us an infallible guide, or we could fall into error, which He would not permit. This makes me think two things:
- Chris.
 
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
Personally, I've had very little experience of "clubbing with the truth" in one-one or small group situations. But I've certainly heard it from the pulpit. Which made me wonder about the difference between what was taught as correct, how it was taught, and how people behaved. We get plenty of adversarial stuff on the matter in SoF, but this ci cyberspace, not RL. Perhaps others have different experiences? Maybe I've just been lucky?

I'm also thinking hard about woodworm's post. I thought that made a most interesting point.
 
Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on :
 
As to the OP,

IMO bad for theology - I never thought I'd espouse an appreciation for old Catholic styles of teaching (i.e. top down), at least there is a strong tendency to try for rigorous analysis behind the theological pronouncements. Contrast this to a random non-denominational evo church making up their theology 'as they go' so to say. Some are careful, some dabble purely in eisegesis (and far more latter than former from my experiences). [This of course is taken from a relatively outsider's viewpoint]

This bad for theology is bad for Christianity as well, as I see it. At very least, the US-style of inerrancy and other baggage that goes with it is showing the great degree of anger, intolerance, and ignorance which girds the faith of Christians.

Bad for relationships - Well, there's a bit of a mixed bag here. To be inerrantist isn't to be a fundamentalist. The strong majority of American professed-Christians are inerrantist/literalist (by polls I put on the last page of the creation science/comfort to the enemy thread). That goes along w/ a huge degree of apathy as well, though.

I think that general zealotry, more than just inerrantist leanings, are a cause for relationship troubles.

quote:
Originally posted by Woodworm:
But isn't this issue about the extent to which you can interpret scripture, update it, or leave it behind? About where you draw the line between "the bible says" and "the spirit leads me"? If you cut the tether of belief in Biblical inerrancy, don't you risk the balloon of faith floating off in pretty well any direction the winds might blow? This is something to struggle with.
At the same time, the usual attachments to inerrancy ('plain reading' is right, etc) have cut the anchor for that ship too.
 
Posted by RadicalWhig (# 13190) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by sanityman:
The insistence that [something] is divinely protected against error is strongly reminiscent of the RC position - it's just that it's target is the bible rather than the RC church.
Indeed. That's why the Bible was called the "Paper Pope" by radical reformers who thought that the Reformed appeal to the Bible was just as dangerous to freedom of conscience and true religion as the Catholics' appeal to the people.
 
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on :
 
I have another reason why inerrancy is bad for theology.

It stems from the fact that there are thousands upon thousands of manuscripts ( or fragments of manuscripts) available and the variations between them are of a similar order.

My copy of Novum Testamentum Graece has almost every page taken up with variant readings.

So which reading is inerrant?

The normal riposte is to say that "the original was inerrant".

By great good fortune we dont have a single original to hand.

So to constrain theological exposition not only to a selected variant reading but to a translation as well stretches credulity and honesty too far.

[ 10. December 2010, 16:52: Message edited by: shamwari ]
 
Posted by sanityman (# 11598) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
I have another reason why inerrancy is bad for theology.

It stems from the fact that there are thousands upon thousands of manuscripts ( or fragments of manuscripts) available and the variations between them are of a similar order.

My copy of Novum Testamentum Graece has almost every page taken up with variant readings.

So which reading is inerrant?

The normal riposte is to say that "the original was inerrant".

By great good fortune we dont have a single original to hand.

So to constrain theological exposition not only to a selected variant reading but to a translation as well stretches credulity and honesty too far.
Actually, the standard line taken appears to be this (interesting article, don't agree with all of it but the background is good):
quote:
Johann Albrecht Bengel examined the 30,000 variants in detail, and added several more based on a dozen manuscripts that he had collated. But he also pronounced the now famous dictum that not one of these variants disturbs any article of the Christian faith. So, although it is true that there are places in the New Testament where the text is uncertain, this does not mean that those uncertainties affect cardinal truths or even more peripheral doctrines that Christians embraced.
(emphasis mine)

However, even given this, if you do believe in the bible alone as infallible source of truth, it must be a self-interpreting document. To me, it's obvious this isn't the case (primarily by examining the endless doctrinal variations, splits, anathemas and excommunications present in those protestant denominations which hold this to be true). It then goes back - as I believe mousethief said elsewhere - to infallibility being valueless without infallibility of interpretation. Otherwise, what exactly is the point?

- Chris.
 
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on :
 
I am entirely with Sanityman and Mousethief and the points they made.

The "originals are inerrant" defence is modified in the link provided to the extent of saying that no cardinal doctrine is implicated in the variant readings.

I would have thought that the Virgin Birth would be considered by many to be a cardinal doctrine.

But an ancient group of mss ( is it the Old Syriac? memory deserts me) insists that Joseph was the father of Jesus. In a biological sense.

The fact that most translations opt for the majority and traditional text does not invalidate the existence of a variant text well accepted in parts of the Early Church.

[ 10. December 2010, 18:46: Message edited by: shamwari ]
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
As ever, cuddly old Gamaliel believes that 'the mileage varies' and that there are various degrees of inerrancy ... if that doesn't sound like an oxymoron.

But for all practical intents and purposes, I think it's true to say that all inerrantists are inerrantists but some more inerrantist than others.

Consequently, the effect on theology and the effect on relationships will vary according to the tightness to which its adherents hold to this premise ... and whether they follow it through to its logical conclusion. I would say that very few inerrantists do in practical terms - otherwise they wouldn't be able to function 'normally' (as it were) in day-to-day social relationships and as useful and valued members of society - which many of them undoubtedly are.

I hate to put things in those utilitarian terms but you know what I mean.

BHB strikes me as one of the most hardline inerrantists I've met for some time. Although there are people with these sort of rigid views in most evangelical congregrations of whatever denomination. I would also say that the RCs and the Orthodox have their equivalents - only over different issues.

Essentially, it's a fundamentalist mindset that misses out on nuance, allegory, poetry and often context. For instance, the fact that Jesus quotes from the OT scriptures extensively is taken to imply that he regarded those scriptures in the same way that contemporary inerrantists do - without taking into account the way First Century Jews actually treated or interpreted their scriptures.

I do become wary, though, when people say that inerrantists fossilise the scriptures so that they don't take on board later insights. I'd agree with this to some extent - insofar that I believe that we should engage responsibly with textual criticism, historical criticism etc etc ... but with an important caveat. These things can be transitory and subject to faddism. I would have thought that one did not need to be woodenly inerrantist to hold that the truths of scripture are timeless and relevant to all generations and we can't simply pick and choose what we want to retain and what we want to chuck overboard.

I suppose that's where Tradition comes in ... either Big T Tradition or the 'that believed everywhere and by all' stuff that Barnabas alludes to.

So, positively, inerrantists, however cack-handedly or misguidedly, are trying to preserve the Faith as they see it and one must surely commend them for their quest for truth and certainty. I certainly wouldn't criticise them for that.

Negatively, it can lead to the pitfalls others have listed here ... and a lot more besides. They can become trapped by their own circular logic and end up reading scripture through a prism or framework of their own making. I would include 'dispensationalism' as a framework of this kind - one imposed on top of the scriptures and through which lens dispensationalists read and interpret the scriptures rather than engaging with the text in a more holistic way.

Someone mentioned somewhere that cults and sects tend to be inerrantist in their approach. The JWs would be a paradigm example of this tendency.

Whilst I would not consider fundamentalist or inerrantist-leaning Christian groups as cults, I would suggest that many do share cultic tendencies. I know. I was in one once. And the effects of these upon relationships and one's ability to interact with the outside world is well known.

So - on balance, I would say that an inerrantist position is understandable and, to some extent commendable, insofar as it sincerely seeks to protect 'the faith once for all revealed to the saints' but misguided in terms of its methodology and effects.

That's my two happ'orth.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
The fact that most translations opt for the majority and traditional text does not invalidate the existence of a variant text well accepted in parts of the Early Church.
What evidence is there for this "well accepted"? And which texts are you referring to?
 
Posted by Jessie Phillips (# 13048) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
The fact that most translations opt for the majority and traditional text does not invalidate the existence of a variant text well accepted in parts of the Early Church.
What evidence is there for this "well accepted"? And which texts are you referring to?
Was shamwari referring to specific alternative texts? That's not how I read the point.

I think the point was that just because one version is popular today, doesn't mean that a different version might not have been more popular at some other point in the past. To put it another way, perhaps there's a chance that the "traditional" or "majority" text changes to fit the fashions of the day.

quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Negatively, it can lead to the pitfalls others have listed here ... and a lot more besides. They can become trapped by their own circular logic and end up reading scripture through a prism or framework of their own making. I would include 'dispensationalism' as a framework of this kind - one imposed on top of the scriptures and through which lens dispensationalists read and interpret the scriptures rather than engaging with the text in a more holistic way.
One thing that intrigues me about futurist and historicist interpretation of Bible prophecy (such as that of Hal Lindsey for example) is that while the text of futurist Biblical prophecy is considered inerrant, the text and appearance of subsequent documents and other artefacts that the dispensationalists believe corroborate Biblical prophecy are not considered inerrant. And yet this point seems to be overlooked when weighing up their interpretation of Biblical prophecy.

It seems to me that whilst dispensationalists would never say that non-Biblical sources are inerrant, in practice, the belief in inerrancy of futurist Biblical prophecies is thought to confer authority on historical texts outside the Bible that are thought to corroborate Biblical prophecy. So inerrancy is not necessarily sola scriptura.

Perhaps there's a distinction to be made between inerrants who believe in futurism or historicism, and inerrants who believe in preterism or some other way of interpreting prophecy. If these are different types of inerrancy, then it's not unreasonable to suppose that they might have a different impact on theology and relationships.

[ 10. December 2010, 20:33: Message edited by: Jessie Phillips ]
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jessie Phillips:
I think the point was that just because one version is popular today, doesn't mean that a different version might not have been more popular at some other point in the past. To put it another way, perhaps there's a chance that the "traditional" or "majority" text changes to fit the fashions of the day.
One can make any kind of guess about what was done in the past but that doesn't make it so. I would like to know what evidence there is for this assertion. I assume it's not just the obvious but meaningless assertion that there are unimportant, miniscule errors of transmission?
 
Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on :
 
The trouble with inerrancy (ok, one of them) is that it's a very easy mistake to go from thinking that the text is inerrant to thinking that one's interpretation of the text is inerrant.
 
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Woodworm:

But isn't this issue about the extent to which you can interpret scripture, update it, or leave it behind? About where you draw the line between "the bible says" and "the spirit leads me"? If you cut the tether of belief in Biblical inerrancy, don't you risk the balloon of faith floating off in pretty well any direction the winds might blow? This is something to struggle with.
This really made me think long and hard and I offer some tentative thoughts based on my own experiences and reflection.

I think it may be possible to articulate a strong and satisfying doctrine of Scripture without the fundamentalist claim of inerrancy and its related theological baggage, much of which seems to me to be pretty incoherent.

I think I would go further and say that there may be such a thing as a distinctive evangelical theology, which has become confused and obscured by inerrancy. Reverence for scripture is miles away from belief that the only sound way of looking at it is via the inerrant hermeneutic.

I am inclined to think that inerrancy as currently articulated could be abandoned with remarkably little adjustment in the real and underlying pattern of evangelical belief and practice. My gut feel is that the doctrine is, in fact, despite claims to the contrary, more a product of philosophical assumptions than genuine and honest, and reverential study of scripture.

For the time being, I am inclined to agree with Woodworm that there is some creative tension in the current position, but those of us who still hold to an evangelical position have I think a responsibility to seek ways of putting our own house in order theologically. I see lots of promising strands, but not too much integration of these yet.

I guess I have been wrestling with this issue for over 25 years now. Evangelicalism was definitely the rock from which I was hewn, and I owe it much. But I don't like some of the company it keeps.
 
Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on :
 
I think Woodworm's struggle is one the church needs to have. I think for some inerrancy provides just as much false security as the most flighty liberal Christianity.

Just because one claims a doctrine of inerrancy doesn't mean one has escaped enslavement to a cultural trend. My experience is that at least some inerrantists mask their culture predilection (say, a nostalgia for an idealized version of the 1950s) under a biblical veneer. Inerrancy, at least claimed as such, is no protection against weather-vane churches. People have tried to employ it to protect all kinds of peculiar institutions.

[ 10. December 2010, 21:10: Message edited by: Bullfrog. ]
 
Posted by JoannaP (# 4493) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by sanityman:
The other (perhaps more unspoken) one seems to be that God "must have" given us an infallible guide, or we could fall into error, which He would not permit. This makes me think two things:[snip]
Speaking as somebody who really does not like uncertainty, for me one of the most challenging things about Christianity is that the two key commandments of "love God with all your heart, soul mind and strength" and "love your neighbour as yourself" are so open to interpretation. I can easily understand the attraction of more rule-based religions where exactly what you are expected to do is spelled out in great detail, but that is not what I have been called to.

I tell myself that life would be very much less interesting if every-one could agree on What Jesus Would Do in any and every situation. [Biased]
 
Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on :
 
I find myself in a slightly strange position in relation to this thread to be honest. Before I cam eon this ship I used to have what I would have described as a high tolerance level for those who held to innerancy and to some extent I would even have defended their corner. But my time on the ship has changed that.

I'm not sure if internet discussion has made me more impatient or less tolerant, but more that what I've seen here makes me believe more and more that it's just not viable. I've always been happy to talk to innerantists that I know, but I guess only to a certain level before the conversation stops or begins to get guarded for fear of insulting someone. One person told me at one stage I should be careful not to damage the faith of the weak, which struck me as being hugely insulting, condescending crap.

I used to believe that even innerantists would be capable of seeing the sacredness of scripture, the absolute, incredible beauty of it and the wondrous nature of how it echoes with human experience and understanding. But now I'm left doubting that from my ship experiences - it seems like there are some who treat scripture like a school text book.

I know that the accusation of the idolisation of scripture has been levied at certain people on the ship, but I had a rather odd experience a couple of days ago. I was reading a passage and then I went to set the Bible on the floor of my living room, but it didn't seem right. It's very hard to explain - but I couldn't do it. I'm not an innerantist, but something odd is certainly there that I find hard to explain.

So where is the line between my own feelings towards scripture and those of the innerantists? I sometimes wonder if it's a little like Wagner. I could of course take other examples - but this one I can relate to and it serves the purpose well. You either love it, can appreciate it from a distance or you hate it. However, in the love group there are those who love it for what it is - who see the faults, the mistakes, the problems; but they love it all the more for that and it adds to the peculiar beauty of a flawed art that hints at a little glimpse of the divine. There is another faction in the love group, who don't have a great understanding of music, who are almost militant in their defence of it's inflated greatness and thereby remove it's fragile beauty.


Right, sorry I'm stopping now cos I'm rambling

[ 10. December 2010, 23:12: Message edited by: fletcher christian ]
 
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
I think it's this damned "perspicuity" thing, fletcher. And it is a bit like appreciation of good music (I'm not a Wagner aficionado BTW). "Perspicuity" suggests that scripture is transparent in meaning, i.e. we don't need "special people" to make sense of it for us, we can do it ourselves! And you know, some of the time that is absolutely true. But the idea that it is true of all scripture, that one cannot be misled by being simplistic about it, is a kind of arrogance. There is mystery, there is depth, there is pain, there is pathos. There is an unfathomability about it, which should keep us humble. At best we know in part. And I think that is the reverence that gets destroyed by the jejune-ness of perspecuity.

Loved you post BTW. Rambling often leads us to good places.

[ 10. December 2010, 23:28: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
 
Posted by Louise (# 30) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
the jejune-ness of perspecuity.
This is an excellent way of putting things. Insisting that things are perspicuous when they're not leads to the bulldozer effect: the people who are working with the complex, fascinating, difficult, layered and sometimes opaque reality must be attacked and swept out of the way of the One True Oversimplification.

The bulldozer attack doesn't stop with merely going after people with different approaches to scripture, you then get the collateral damage: scientists, historians and archaeologists all get attacked because false perspecuity is not compatible with the academic disciplines of those subjects. So people who are simply, say interested in untangling Egyptian dynastic chronology, suddenly find their profession getting slandered or charlatans in that field being lauded, and then to their bafflement find themselves labelled 'liberals' because academic study has not produced the results that the 'perspicuists' wish to hear. Whole professions of innocent hard-working people of integrity get slandered, and it ends up with Christianity being dismissed by many as something so batty and dishonest that it's not worth considering.

L.
 
Posted by Johnny S (# 12581) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Louise:
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
the jejune-ness of perspecuity.
This is an excellent way of putting things. Insisting that things are perspicuous when they're not leads to the bulldozer effect: the people who are working with the complex, fascinating, difficult, layered and sometimes opaque reality must be attacked and swept out of the way of the One True Oversimplification.
To be fair that is never what perspicuity meant. The reformers thought that scripture was clear (1. You don't need an initiated inside track to understand it. 2. You could understand enough for faith in Christ.) but not that it was simple.

ISTM that you are comparing popularist evangelicalism with high brow liberalism.
 
Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
quote:
Originally posted by Louise:
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
the jejune-ness of perspecuity.
This is an excellent way of putting things. Insisting that things are perspicuous when they're not leads to the bulldozer effect: the people who are working with the complex, fascinating, difficult, layered and sometimes opaque reality must be attacked and swept out of the way of the One True Oversimplification.
To be fair that is never what perspicuity meant. The reformers thought that scripture was clear (1. You don't need an initiated inside track to understand it. 2. You could understand enough for faith in Christ.) but not that it was simple.

ISTM that you are comparing popularist evangelicalism with high brow liberalism.
As someone who is somewhat initiated, and has, in his own way, developed a pretty high view of scripture (well said by fletcher christian) I find it kind of shocking that someone can say "Oh, it's so simple! You just sit down and read it!"

It sounds innocent, but while I think the RC Church had made a royal mess by being so guarded and serious about everything, I do have an appreciation for why they were very afraid of letting people just read it in their own homes. It's very easy to misread a few passages and get some really toxic ideas that have (IMO) nothing to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Revelation is a beautiful piece of work, but history is littered with the bodies of people who misread it, and with their victims.

Having a community with some control is, in theory, supposed to restrain the worst of individual enthusiasms (to use a somewhat archaic form of the word) and keep the Christian reading of the Bible alive. Obviously, it can lead to flaws, but as you almost conceded, the popular mode can lead to its own kinds of madness and at the moment that's the one I see more often. Again, it's a fine line between the Bible that I read is Inerrant and I am Inerrant because I read My Bible. The latter is obviously a pathology of inerrantist understanding, but IME it's a common one.

In a certain, very very carefully worded sense I might be willing, with fear and trembling, to sign onto a precisely nuanced sense of inerrancy but I think those kinds of nuances and careful wordings get lost very quickly in the rough and tumble of reality. Hence, the hazard of popularist evangelicalism.

Is there a way to communicate inerrancy that can be inoculated against this projection problem?
 
Posted by Johnny S (# 12581) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog.:

Having a community with some control is, in theory, supposed to restrain the worst of individual enthusiasms (to use a somewhat archaic form of the word) and keep the Christian reading of the Bible alive. Obviously, it can lead to flaws, but as you almost conceded, the popular mode can lead to its own kinds of madness and at the moment that's the one I see more often. Again, it's a fine line between the Bible that I read is Inerrant and I am Inerrant because I read My Bible. The latter is obviously a pathology of inerrantist understanding, but IME it's a common one.
I did concede, not almost.

The very fact that we are both talking about a popular mode demonstrates that (generally) we are talking about a community and not individuals. (I do sometimes meet idiosyncratic individuals but I think you get them in all church traditions.) This 'popular evangelical' community gets its ideas from key leaders, writers, conferences, TV speakers.

So while I agree totally with your comments about the need for community controls I don't think that alone helps with this particular group. Like it or hate it the western world lives after the Reformation. We just have to deal with that. There is no 'one traditional, historic church'. If you don't like what the RC church teaches you can just join another church. Therefore, ISTM, all church communities, historic or popular, are largely self-selecting.

IMO arguments over inerrant vs infallible etc. are missing the point. It is commitment to scripture as the rule of faith which is the key.

(I'm using the RC church as an example simply because you raised it but I want to make it clear that I'm just trying to make a general point.) If we say that interpretation rests in the hands of the church then this is actually even more divisive. Sure lots of western Christians get on together but only in a 'don't ask, don't tell' sort of way. They have to, because when one person from one community talks to one from another they have two mutually incompatible authorities.

I'm still admitting that a high view of scripture can lead to similar divisions, but there is more hope for those with a high view of scripture.
 
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
I don't think so, myself. Perspicuity,in common use, simply means clear and lucid. I'm quite happy to sign up to the proposition that scripture contains material which is clear and lucid, but that clear and lucid are not terms which can be applied to the whole of scripture.

There seems little doubt to me that the term was coined as part of a very proper "democratising" of scripture. It should be available to all, all should be free to read it, it contains "the lively oracles of God", folks will find illumination there. Given the significance of the term for Dissenters, I'm not going to depart from the goodness of that at all. I regard it as a good.

What I think is wrong is the seemingly inevitable conveyance of the supporting message that a full understanding of scripture may be obtained by applying a principle of perspicuity to all texts and all associated issues of doctrine and theology. Faith is not dependent on in depth understandings, that is for sure. It is when that faith becomes wedded to such a supporting message that great damage may be done. Folks become arrogant, certain, divisive. I may be expecting too much but I think the argumentativeness of protestantism (and certainly the Dissenting tradition within it) is also a source of much good. It encourages a proper pondering, a proper weighing. Encouraging folks to read the scriptures for themselves and ponder their meaning is excellent, provided that it is harnessed to both humility and a proper awareness of ones own limitations.

Personally, I don't mind the translation "God-breathed" for inspired. As long as it is wedded to the Isaianic "my thoughts are not your thoughts".

Reverence for scripture is not bible idolatry. Some to combine a reawakening of a proper respect for its depth and mystery, and our own limitations in coming to terms with its meaning. We can once again recognise the corporate, "loving with our minds - not just my mind" dimension of loving God.
 
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
ETA "Some reform .." in the last paragraph.
 
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
Double-drat! xposted with Johnny S - I was commenting on Bullfrog's post, not your latest, Johnny.
 
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
Like it or hate it the western world lives after the Reformation. We just have to deal with that.

<snip>

I'm still admitting that a high view of scripture can lead to similar divisions, but there is more hope for those with a high view of scripture.
(I know this looks like a quadruple post but allowing for corrections it's only a double ..)

Yes ... and I do hope so!

There have been surveys done - and there are many exhortations about it as well - pointing out that bible-reading is in decline amongst evangelicals. They know they should - and most carry to church - but many do not.

I think this cross-connects here. Many folks have difficulty making sense of scripture and finding its relevance on their own, and if they get the impression they should be able to do that, they get guilty and secretive as well.

And that includes a lot of thoughtful folks who are inhibited from reading outside of what they believe is a zone of soundness. Often implied, rarely clearly stated.

Johnny, I really think we have a lot of work to do to ensure that those who have, or seek to have, a reverent and high view of scripture get the right kind of support in coming to terms with its meaning and complexities. And I am now sure that is not the perspicuous inerrantist path as currently portrayed (regardless of how nuanced the original reformers were).

If you should seek for an example of the dangers, look at the thread I linked in my OP.
 
Posted by Qoheleth. (# 9265) on :
 
Through the serendipity of the HS, yesterday I accidentally happened upon this article by an evangelical Baptist, whilst looking for something else entirely.
quote:
... each of these supposedly evangelical habits treat the Bible as something utterly distinct from who we really are. They are the idolatrous practices of a modern world bent upon using everything around as a "resource", and the Bible is no different. With such a worldview, Scripture is something external to us, and we pick it up and apply it in ways that turn it into a mere puppet, no matter how "sound" we might like to think we are.

 
Posted by Johnny S (# 12581) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
There have been surveys done - and there are many exhortations about it as well - pointing out that bible-reading is in decline amongst evangelicals. They know they should - and most carry to church - but many do not.

I think this cross-connects here. Many folks have difficulty making sense of scripture and finding its relevance on their own, and if they get the impression they should be able to do that, they get guilty and secretive as well.
Beware the monocausal fallacy!

Have you got any evidence that bible-reading is declining among evangelicals at a different rate from everyone else?
 
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
Personal Bible Study and Reading is more overtly encouraged amongst evo's, n'est pas? At least that's my UK experience. Plus a significant number of one-one conversations with folks from a number of different churches. And the cumulative effect of working in youth ministries for over 20 years.

I appreciate the monocausal fallacy. But I think there is a connection. I don't need there to be a connection. In many ways, I hope there isn't.

But to judge from Qoheleth's post, I'm not the only one with an uneasy conscience about our "traditional" approaches to scripture. Can't prove it at all. I have an inkling!
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Barnabas62 and Johnny S ... this is a fascinating thread and I've enjoyed both your posts here.

ISTM that a contemporary UK Baptist (and Australian Baptist, Johnny?) setting is a good one to work these things through insofar that the BU contains people with a wide range of perspectives, both inerrantists and those with a less fundamentalist approach.

I may have just struck lucky, but my experience of the BU has been that of a more nuanced form of evangelicalism that takes Biblical criticism seriously and yet retains a love and respect for the scriptures in a non-bibliolatrous way.

I daresay the same thing can be found in some CofE circles, but in my experience the evos within the CofE are so keen to demonstrate how evangelical they are that they can come across as stridently as some of the fundies from the 'independent sector.'

Equally, I would contend that those who take the kind of approach Barnabas is espousing will naturally find themselves in fruitful eirenic relationships with Christians from other traditions who share similar concerns - be they RC, Orthodox, Anglo-Catholic, Presbyterian or whatever else.

About a dozen years ago now, Andrew Walker (pentie turned Orthodox), Tom Smail (Church of Scotland) and Nigel Wright (Baptist) collaborated quite fruitfully, in my view, on theological discourse that occupied this very same 'middle-ground'.

Ok ... I'm fluffy and like to be moderate ... but it strikes me that this is where health is to be found. Neither in extreme wooden fundamentalism nor in an outrageously 'out-there' radical liberalism ... but somewhere comfortably between both poles.
 
Posted by Johnny S (# 12581) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I may have just struck lucky, but my experience of the BU has been that of a more nuanced form of evangelicalism that takes Biblical criticism seriously and yet retains a love and respect for the scriptures in a non-bibliolatrous way.
Yeah, good rule of thumb - just assume that the Baptists have got it right about everything and you won't go far wrong. [Biased]
 
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:

Equally, I would contend that those who take the kind of approach Barnabas is espousing will naturally find themselves in fruitful eirenic relationships with Christians from other traditions who share similar concerns - be they RC, Orthodox, Anglo-Catholic, Presbyterian or whatever else.

About a dozen years ago now, Andrew Walker (pentie turned Orthodox), Tom Smail (Church of Scotland) and Nigel Wright (Baptist) collaborated quite fruitfully, in my view, on theological discourse that occupied this very same 'middle-ground'.

Thanks, Gamaliel, I'm interested in that discourse. Is that to be found in "Charismatic Renewal: The Search for a Theology, by Tom Smail, Andrew Walker and Nigel Wright (SPCK, 1994)"? Have you got it/read it?

I haven't read it. But it sounds like the unease has been given voice before. I tend to spot it in Brian McLaren's work as well.
 
Posted by Jessie Phillips (# 13048) on :
 
It still seems to me that there's a persistent assumption in this thread that inerrancy is monolithic. Barnabas62 speaks of "the inerrant hermaneutic" - to which I can only say, "which one?" Shamwari was right to point out that disagreements between inerrants do exist - and I for one suspect that the most significant source of disagreement among inerrants lies between different forms of historicist and futurist interpretation of prophecy.

Inerrants themselves would rarely admit that there's more than one kind of inerrancy. But that does not mean that all forms of inerrancy are equally good and/or bad for theology and relationships.

I think the belief that the Bible is inerrant, and the belief that ordinary people ought to be able to make sense of the Bible for themselves, are not necessarily one and the same thing - although I could be wrong on that.

quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I may have just struck lucky, but my experience of the BU has been that of a more nuanced form of evangelicalism that takes Biblical criticism seriously and yet retains a love and respect for the scriptures in a non-bibliolatrous way.

I daresay the same thing can be found in some CofE circles, but in my experience the evos within the CofE are so keen to demonstrate how evangelical they are that they can come across as stridently as some of the fundies from the 'independent sector.'
Interesting observation. Don't suppose you can point to any published sermons or articles from BU sources which, in your opinion, serve as evidence of this?

Like Johnny S, I too am sceptical of the idea that one denomination has got it more stitched up than any other, although I'm interested in more specific references to published material.

In particular, I'm sceptical of the idea that one form of "love and respect for the scriptures" is bibliolatrous, whereas another isn't.

I suspect that "bibliolatry" is often a straw man. It would not even be possible to accuse the inerrants that you disagree with of "bibliolatry" if there wasn't a certain amount of known fuzziness and vagueness in Judao-Christian tradition over what does, and does not, constitute "idolatry".
 
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jessie Phillips:
It still seems to me that there's a persistent assumption in this thread that inerrancy is monolithic. Barnabas62 speaks of "the inerrant hermaneutic" - to which I can only say, "which one?"
Shorthand, Jessie Phillips. You're quite right to point it out. And it's ceetainly true that folks from the "inerrancy family" of beliefs do disagree, and often split!

The essential definition I use is the central belief that the bible is without error. Some folks who believe that are also literalists. Other inerrantists are not at all literalists, quite happy to accept allegorical explanations which keep the texts harmonised. Some believe that the standard should be applied to the original documents and so are very happy with textual research and correction by reference to original documents. Some believe that God has protected translation from error as well. Some believe that inerrancy confirms the ancient Creeds of the church and are happy to see the Creeds work as a wise control over interpretation. "If your conclusions are not Trinitarian, you must have done your sums wrong". Some use it to attack the ancient Creeds of the church! "The Creeds are a product of Tradition, they are not God's Word". And that's just a part of the variation I know about!

So you get lots of variations around what I see as a core belief. A major thing which seems to me common to the great majority of them is a belief that texts can be harmonised together somehow. I suppose that is the one which gives me the biggest concern since enforced harmonisation stops you seeing what is there.

Another issue is the way in which faith becomes propositional, all about the meaning of words and not (as Qoheleth's most helpful post pointed out) a matter of encounter. The idea that scripture may work as one of the communication "nexuses" between God and ourselves, between the writers and ourselves, between our lives and their lives.

No analysis of inerrancy and its effects can avoid variety and complexity. In order to talk about it all, there is always some element of shorthanding.
 
Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Some folks who believe that are also literalists. Other inerrantists are not at all literalists, quite happy to accept allegorical explanations which keep the texts harmonised.
That's a bit of a straw man. I doubt you would find many self-defined literalists who think that before the Babylonian Captivity the trees in the Holy Land used to have hands that they could clap.

Reading the Bible literally means recognising that it says what it says. It does not mean that it says whatever a semi-literate reader might imagine it says from an out-of-context loan-translation of Hebrew or Greek into some other arbitrary language.
 
Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on :
 
quote:

It still seems to me that there's a persistent assumption in this thread that inerrancy is monolithic. Barnabas62 speaks of "the inerrant hermaneutic" - to which I can only say, "which one?"
I think all sides in this debate fall into the same trap. There are lots of posts that generally take a line of:
'Oh, you libruls who would throw out scripture/ignore it/pick and choose/use it as toilet paper.'
The difficulty is that we make a parody of the 'other side' and so the debate never actually gets anywhere and no level of understanding is ever achieved. It's very difficult to enter a debate or discussion about approaches to scripture when someone automatically presumes you have a disregard for it before they even ask you a question.
 
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
That's a clear allegory there, ken. A literalist can take it allegorically, because that is its obvious literal meaning!

What I was thinking about is that there are inerrantists who are not Young Earth Creationists. They are happy to treat the days of creation (or some of them) as epochs. The harmonised truth of scripture can be "protected" by allowing for an allegorical explanation of the Creation story (or some early parts of it). It's a recognition by them that the great age of the earth and the universe is no longer "up for grabs". You can still have a literal Adam in this scheme, and a literal Fall. It's just that the scene-setting took a little longer (actually a heck of a lot longer!)

I don't think that's a strawman - the guiding principle is harmonisation, which can include treating allegorically scriptures which literalists would say must be taken literally!

Capiche?
 
Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:

What I was thinking about is that there are inerrantists who are not Young Earth Creationists.
I would put myself in that category.
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
A few clarifications ...

No, I wasn't saying that the Baptists have got everything stitched up better than anyone else - just that the nature of the BU and the make-up of many Baptist congregations makes it, in my experience, a place where it is possible to have these kind of discussions and debates whereas other predominantly evangelical settings I've come across don't allow that luxury.

But I couldn't point to websites or publications ... apart from, perhaps, Nigel Wright's 'The Radical Evangelical' which some might prefer to call 'The liberal evangelical' ... [Biased]

Yes Barnabas, that 'Charismatic Renewal' book was the one I was thinking of. It's somewhat out of date now - published in the mid-90s and then again just after the Toronto thing - but it's main thrust still holds, I think. It certainly kept me sane when I first came across it, although looking back now it doesn't seem as 'Oh brave new world!' as I took it to be at the time.

Probably shows how far I've shifted in that time. More to the theological left.

But I'm very orthodox on the creeds and so on. I'd like to think I'm pretty balanced all round, but that's for others to assess ...
 
Posted by Johnny S (# 12581) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
A few clarifications ...

No, I wasn't saying that the Baptists have got everything stitched up better than anyone else...
I know that. I was joking.

You're such a literalist. [Razz]

[ 12. December 2010, 21:05: Message edited by: Johnny S ]
 
Posted by Johnny S (# 12581) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:

I don't think that's a strawman - the guiding principle is harmonisation, which can include treating allegorically scriptures which literalists would say must be taken literally!
Umm, I'm not so sure.

Carrying on the example of creation - it is a question of what the text actually says. Even on a very late dating of Genesis the author / editor would not have had an abstract concept of time. A day is the time it takes for the sun to rise, set, and rise again. What is it supposed to mean that the sun was only created on the fourth day? From within the text there are plenty of reasons to question a YEC position.

ISTM there are two groups whose main aim is harmonisation - YECs and anti-inerrancists (who sole concern is to show that it is impossible to harmonise Genesis with modern scientific discovery).

Instead why can't we read Genesis 1-2 and listen to what the author /editor wants to say? That is a messy process at times but is the one position that is prepared to listen (to the text) more than speak (at the text).
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
Jumping in boots first, wooden literalist inerrancy is heterodox. Meaningless. Babylon. Whack. Psychotic. Always wedded to damnationism. Just more obviously than mandatory materialist liberal rationalism. Which is no less an uneasy bedfellow. And wedded to the other extreme of universalism.

And as Ken surprisingly said, I'm inerrantist when it comes to the primary, intended, obvious, conservative meaning accepting ALL genres, allegories, pragmatism, oracularity under the Aslan premiss that God ain't safe, but He's good.
 
Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
Even on a very late dating of Genesis the author / editor would not have had an abstract concept of time.
Says who? What degree of abstraction is required? My (very minimal) understanding of Spanish is that they use manana to mean much more than 'tomorrow' but also some point in the future. I've also heard this is a pretty old practice and certainly not confined to the most educated among them. I think we also have examples of unexpected levels of abstraction from various stone-age tribes in jungles as well.

quote:
Instead why can't we read Genesis 1-2 and listen to what the author /editor wants to say?
Probably because it's very hard (understatement) to divorce what you expect them to say from what they are saying. Particularly since we don't necessarily know what they are saying, and they're not around to ask....
 
Posted by Johnny S (# 12581) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by pjkirk:
I think we also have examples of unexpected levels of abstraction from various stone-age tribes in jungles as well.
This is a bit of an tangent (because I think my main point that a day was measured by the sun still stands regardless) but I'm intrigued by this - how can you gather evidence of abstraction from the stone-age period?
 
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
Given the tangent ...

Johnny, can we allow that the editor may be post-Exilic, and can we allow that he may have made use of collections of myths and sagas to create a "salvation history" to demonstrate that God will save His people? Included in which myths are two creation myths to explain how things all got started?

In short, can Genesis be inerrant, (making use of the current paradigm for inerrrancy which suits you), in that the editor's supposed actions ensure that the Bible does not err in its primary purposes here, of saying these crucial things.

God created the heavens and the earth

Man fell from grace through disobedience

God chose to save man through an obedient, faithful people.

Note I am not saying that the above view is the only one which can be taken of the process by which we have this book of the OT. Simply that such things are indeed believed by some Christians. I am asking the question whether such a view might be regarded as consistent with an inerrant view of scripture. And therefore be one which you would be happy to communicate, to a congregation, as a possible explanation of Genesis which good people of faith believe? I'm not asking whether you believe it!

Or is that kind of view of the intentions of the author/editor outside the scope of an inerrant view of scripture?

It's a thought experiment, if you like. It might also be thought of as a practical issue of ecumenism.
 
Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
quote:
Originally posted by pjkirk:
I think we also have examples of unexpected levels of abstraction from various stone-age tribes in jungles as well.
This is a bit of an tangent (because I think my main point that a day was measured by the sun still stands regardless) but I'm intrigued by this - how can you gather evidence of abstraction from the stone-age period?
We have modern-day native tribes in various portions of the amazon jungle which would allow some comparison.
 
Posted by Johnny S (# 12581) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Johnny, can we allow that the editor may be post-Exilic, and can we allow that he may have made use of collections of myths and sagas to create a "salvation history" to demonstrate that God will save His people? Included in which myths are two creation myths to explain how things all got started?
I'd be happy to allow any of that.

I'd want to know why anyone was so keen to assume that though - re-telling a story from a different perspective is a very common story-telling technique used in hollywood today. It does intrigued me as to why it 'must' be two originally separate creation myths.
 
Posted by Johnny S (# 12581) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by pjkirk:
We have modern-day native tribes in various portions of the amazon jungle which would allow some comparison.
ISTM that would be virtually impossible to do without importing our notions of the abstract. Actually, as I think about it, it may even be completely impossible.

[ 13. December 2010, 02:00: Message edited by: Johnny S ]
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
That's a clear allegory there, ken. A literalist can take it allegorically, because that is its obvious literal meaning!
This is tongue-in-cheek, right? "Literal" and "allegorical" are fundamentally opposed. The literal reading is that trees hand hands that they clapped. Any allegorical reading that does not imply this is NOT literal.
 
Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
quote:
Originally posted by pjkirk:
We have modern-day native tribes in various portions of the amazon jungle which would allow some comparison.
ISTM that would be virtually impossible to do without importing our notions of the abstract. Actually, as I think about it, it may even be completely impossible.
I can take this post two ways:

1 - 'importing our notions of abstract' wouldn't allow us to learn anything about their notions of abstract things. I doubt this is what you're going for though.

2 - We'll be teaching them abstraction in the process of learning about them. I am not an anthropologist, but I believe it is very much possible to do so without these repercussions you suggest.

Given how little information is available from the time, do you have any solid reason to think they weren't capable of thinking of a day as anything other than sunup to sunup? Is there anything more than mere assertion to be made from either side?
 
Posted by Johnny S (# 12581) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
That's a clear allegory there, ken. A literalist can take it allegorically, because that is its obvious literal meaning!
This is tongue-in-cheek, right? "Literal" and "allegorical" are fundamentally opposed. The literal reading is that trees hand hands that they clapped. Any allegorical reading that does not imply this is NOT literal.
Not necessarily.

This may be a pond thingy MT. Brits often use literal in (what I think was it's original meaning) the sense of 'according to its natural meaning.'

Hence genre is important. Literature here is read literally - to read a poem as if it was a scientific text book is not to read it literally.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
Could be a pond thing. I use literally to mean "what it means if each word (or phrase) is taken at its plain, concrete meaning."

Therefore "he was taking the piss" literally means he was obtaining for himself previously-mentioned urine. "Literally" is what you say to specifically exclude the possibility that you're being analogical / metaphorical. "No, I didn't mean he was saying one thing and meaning another. I meant he was literally picking up and carrying away a container of urine."

The idea that something can be both literal and metaphorical is an oxymoron.
 
Posted by Johnny S (# 12581) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by pjkirk:

Given how little information is available from the time, do you have any solid reason to think they weren't capable of thinking of a day as anything other than sunup to sunup? Is there anything more than mere assertion to be made from either side?
Agreed. (For Jews it was sundown to sundown anyway!)

It was a tangent and now I wish I hadn't mentioned it.
 
Posted by Johnny S (# 12581) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Could be a pond thing. I use literally to mean "what it means if each word (or phrase) is taken at its plain, concrete meaning."
But words always have a context.

There is no "plain, concrete meaning" of individual words of phrases outside of their context.

When I use the word 'literal' I am also including the way in which it was written down (implied in the original semantics of the word ... IIRC.)

Wow, I'm coming over all post-modern for a moment. Better have a lie down.
 
Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
Agreed. (For Jews it was sundown to sundown anyway!)

It was a tangent and now I wish I hadn't mentioned it.
I think it's a useful tangent, though.

We know one usage for Jews was sundown to sundown, from Sabbath, etc. Do we have any reason to believe this is the only usage?

If we are making such assumptions when we read the text, we need to be very clear about acknowledging them. Personally, I don't know if it's justifiable or not. I find it very important either way, though.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
@Johnny: I think you're making a distinction that goes too far. Many words do have concrete, literal meanings. A dog is a domestic animal of the genus canis. A manger is a trough, usually made of wood, in which fodder for animals is placed. A dog in a manger, literally, is a canis lupus familiaris in a feeding trough. To move away from that except in very narrow ways (a wolf can also be called a dog, for instance) is to become more and more figurative. The context may very well make it clear that I am talking about a person who cannot swim scaring everybody out of the pool by standing on the edge of the pool and urinating into it. But at no point does that make it the literal meaning of the phrase. Context does not confer literalness. Meaning, yes, but not all meanings are literal.

[ 13. December 2010, 04:36: Message edited by: mousethief ]
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
So while I agree totally with your comments about the need for community controls I don't think that alone helps with this particular group. [1] Like it or hate it the western world lives after the Reformation. We just have to deal with that. [2] There is no 'one traditional, historic church'. [3] If you don't like what the RC church teaches you can just join another church. [4] Therefore, ISTM, all church communities, historic or popular, are largely self-selecting.
I am interested if you think that [2] follows from [3]?

quote:
IMO arguments over inerrant vs infallible etc. are missing the point. It is commitment to scripture as the rule of faith which is the key.
Scripture as interpreted by whom? Some people think Scripture is clear that homosexual hanky-panky is sinful. Others just as sincerely think that it says no such thing. How can Scripture be the rule of faith if people can derive such different "rules" from the same book?

quote:
I'm still admitting that a high view of scripture can lead to similar divisions, but there is more hope for those with a high view of scripture.
This would have to be proven, not merely asserted.
 
Posted by Johnny S (# 12581) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by pjkirk:

We know one usage for Jews was sundown to sundown, from Sabbath, etc. Do we have any reason to believe this is the only usage?

If we are making such assumptions when we read the text, we need to be very clear about acknowledging them. Personally, I don't know if it's justifiable or not. I find it very important either way, though.
Okay, if you are going to push it then we get that definition from Genesis 1 v 3. The text itself defines a day as an evening and a morning. However, in introducing the sun on day four also causes the reader to question what a morning or evening was like before the sun.

Those are all assumptions that come directly from the text and do not have to be imported.
 
Posted by Johnny S (# 12581) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
@Johnny: I think you're making a distinction that goes too far.
Possibly.

Ken and B62 can speak for themselves - I was just trying to shed some light on how the term is often used slightly differently in the UK.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Could be a pond thing. I use literally to mean "what it means if each word (or phrase) is taken at its plain, concrete meaning."
But words always have a context.

There is no "plain, concrete meaning" of individual words of phrases outside of their context.

When I use the word 'literal' I am also including the way in which it was written down (implied in the original semantics of the word ... IIRC.)

Wow, I'm coming over all post-modern for a moment. Better have a lie down.
[Killing me] [Overused]
 
Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
quote:
Originally posted by pjkirk:

We know one usage for Jews was sundown to sundown, from Sabbath, etc. Do we have any reason to believe this is the only usage?

If we are making such assumptions when we read the text, we need to be very clear about acknowledging them. Personally, I don't know if it's justifiable or not. I find it very important either way, though.
Okay, if you are going to push it then we get that definition from Genesis 1 v 3. The text itself defines a day as an evening and a morning. However, in introducing the sun on day four also causes the reader to question what a morning or evening was like before the sun.

Those are all assumptions that come directly from the text and do not have to be imported.
My point isn't that I think the text refers to epochs, or anything but 24 hour days. My point is more that we need to make sure we're not reading our perhaps unfounded beliefs as to what they believed. Obviously this isn't a new thing, but when you make a statement like that they didn't have any concept of a day beyond sundown-sundown, it needs some definite support.

Biblical scholars certainly attempt this constantly, but for us, reading English translations and canned commentary, it's trivially easy to go too far with our assumptions. Given the fractured nature of debate here, and the many pages of text all based upon poor usage or statement of assumptions that we see on threads, this is perhaps more important than it otherwise would be.
 
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Johnny, can we allow that the editor may be post-Exilic, and can we allow that he may have made use of collections of myths and sagas to create a "salvation history" to demonstrate that God will save His people? Included in which myths are two creation myths to explain how things all got started?
I'd be happy to allow any of that.

I'd want to know why anyone was so keen to assume that though - re-telling a story from a different perspective is a very common story-telling technique used in hollywood today. It does intrigued me as to why it 'must' be two originally separate creation myths.
I'm glad to hear all of that. I'm taking stock of the thoughts expressed so far, particularly those pointing out that the word inerrant is problematic and potentially used as a club both ways. I think it was the conservative evangelical scholar F F Bruce, when quizzed in the US whether he believed that the Bible was inerrant, said "I prefer to say true".

There is truth as meaning, and truth as facticity. Both may point to the Way, the Truth and the Life. Faith is not propositional, nor is it free from propositions. I think what I am feeling for is a way of expressing that within evangelicalism which allows all of us the necessary freedoms to explore, reverently, the truths of scripture which point to the Living Word, and enable some of the divisive baggage to be shed.

I'm sorry if I created additional baggage here by my use of words. That was inadvertent and you can be sure the lesson has gone home. In nonconformist terms, I'm pretty irenic even when getting a bit argmentative.

The divisions in the church are often caused by the language we use, but some of them are based on real differences. Pinching a few words from the Beegees, words may steal our heart away from the love we seek to express. In discourse, "words are all we have". In life, the sharing of our lives may take place in the much wider and more profound means we think of as loving our neighbour as ourselves. It's easy to forget that when we're rapping.
 
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
This thread is reading FAR too much like the seminar I had at work this morning...

Context certainly is tremendously important. I mean, quite recently I've written something about Christmas trees and I can't imagine it's what you'd expect without knowing the context.
 
Posted by Johnny S (# 12581) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I am interested if you think that [2] follows from [3]?
Possibly, but since we cannot turn back time the question is moot.

The current RC church is as much a reaction against Protestantism as vice-versa and the same for the Orthodox (East vs. West). The 11th century and 16th century represent forks in the road. This means that both paths deviated from where they were originally going.

We have to deal with the reality of now rather than pretending that the past didn't happen.

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Scripture as interpreted by whom? Some people think Scripture is clear that homosexual hanky-panky is sinful. Others just as sincerely think that it says no such thing. How can Scripture be the rule of faith if people can derive such different "rules" from the same book?
Interesting example to choose MT. I assume you whole-heartedly support the position of the RC and the Orthodox on this one do you?

The fact that evangelicals are arguing over this proves something very significant - they can! I think it is very hard to argue against the fact that the debate among the RC and the Orthodox on this subject was not largely provoked by all those Protestants with the freedom to discuss it.

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
This would have to be proven, not merely asserted.
I suppose all my evidence is largely anecdotal.

I can speak of decades of experience of the ecumenical movement in the UK. This was largely a waste of time. Lots of denominations pretending that they had something in common. In reality that only thing uniting them was how few people attended their churches (particularly young people - it always seemed to be out getting the yoof). Ecumenical groups would arrange joint events which included hundreds of churches and (on one memorable occasion) when it is was held at my church less people turned up than would do normally at our Sunday morning service. This is what I mean by the sham unity that happens when denominations get together without submitting to one another's denominational authority. I actually had a fair bit of respect for the RC Priests involved - they never pretended there was any unity - they were friendly but clear, that the only way to belong to the church was to join their self-legitimising authority claim.

On the other hand I can also talk about lots of genuine cooperation with evangelical churches of sorts of persuasions - Anglican, Pentecostal, Presbyterian, Uniting (here in Oz), Methodist .. etc. - where we disagree majorly on issues such as baptism or charismatic expressions. However, the fact that we all take scripture as our yardstick does make a real difference. It means that I can still think they are wrong (on certain issues) but that we both accept the same authority. That means that we can talk about anything. On any issue it is possible that we could change our minds. Unity is impossible if most of the key topics are off limits because "my church says so."
 
Posted by Johnny S (# 12581) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by pjkirk:
My point isn't that I think the text refers to epochs, or anything but 24 hour days.
One thing we can be certain of is that the text does not refer to 24 hour days. I think you have just coined the original anachronism.

quote:
Originally posted by pjkirk:
My point is more that we need to make sure we're not reading our perhaps unfounded beliefs as to what they believed. Obviously this isn't a new thing, but when you make a statement like that they didn't have any concept of a day beyond sundown-sundown, it needs some definite support.
True, but as I said the text explicitly defines a day as morning and evening. I think the burden of proof rests on you to show that a significantly more abstract concept of time was common.
 
Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by pjkirk:
We have modern-day native tribes in various portions of the amazon jungle which would allow some comparison.
They are the product of as many centuries of cultural and technological development as we are, and their culture is no more likely to be like that of our common ancestors than ours is. Especially seeing as open tropical rain forest is actually quite a recent habitat for humans - those hunter-gatherers have some ancestors who lived in cities.

Even if you adopt a rather crude technological determinism - "those folk in South America are using stone tools and living in reed huts so they must think the same way our stone age ancestors did" - what has that got to do with the ancient Hebrews?

The Hebrews at the time of the establishment of the Kingdom of Israel weren't illiterate stone-age hunter-gatherers. They were literate bronze-age semi-nomadic herders, participating in (though politically marginal to) a large-scale Middle Eastern civilisation that had stone buildings and cities and seagoing ships and long distance trade and a written history that already went back for nearly three thousand years!

[ 13. December 2010, 12:18: Message edited by: ken ]
 
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
@Johnny: I think you're making a distinction that goes too far.
Possibly.

Ken and B62 can speak for themselves - I was just trying to shed some light on how the term is often used slightly differently in the UK.
mousethief, Johnny is right about some pond differences in the colloquial use of the word, and you are right to point to precision. In the context of this discussion, I'm more than happy to accept your precision. But here from the Wiki article on biblical literalism is the kind of thinking I meant to convey about literalism. I've emboldened the key section - not to sure about the part which precedes it!

quote:
Biblical literalism (also called Biblicism or Biblical fundamentalism) is the interpretation or translation of the explicit and primary sense of words in the Bible. A literal, Biblical interpretation is associated with the fundamentalist and evangelical hermeneutical approach to Scripture, and is used by many conservative Christians today. The essence of this approach focuses upon the author's intent as the primary meaning of the text. Literal interpretation does place emphasis upon the referential aspect of the words or terms in the text. It does not, however, mean a complete denial of literary aspects, genre, or figures of speech within the text (e.g., parable, allegory, simile, or metaphor). Also literalism does not necessarily lead to total and complete agreement upon one single interpretation for any given passage.

 
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
The Noah's Flood thread and the Gen 6:1-4 thread in DH are providing some interesting illustrations, of inerrant hermeneutics in action. Sure theoretical classification is somewhat difficult. Perhaps the examples speak more to my personal unease than any particular definitions?
 
Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
 
Just like the last two times we discussed this, can I suggest that people read The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy which is probably the nearest there is to a conservative evengelical consensus on what they mean by "inerrancy".

In their "exposition" or explanatory notes:

quote:

We affirm that canonical Scripture should always be interpreted on the basis that it is infallible and inerrant. However, in determining what the God-taught writer is asserting in each passage, we must pay the most careful attention to its claims and character as a human production. In inspiration, God utilized the culture and conventions of his penman's milieu, a milieu that God controls in His sovereign providence; it is misinterpretation to imagine otherwise.

So history must be treated as history, poetry as poetry, hyperbole and metaphor as hyperbole and metaphor, generalization and approximation as what they are, and so forth. Differences between literary conventions in Bible times and in ours must also be observed: Since, for instance, nonchronological narration and imprecise citation were conventional and acceptable and violated no expectations in those days, we must not regard these things as faults when we find them in Bible writers. When total precision of a particular kind was not expected nor aimed at, it is no error not to have achieved it. Scripture is inerrant, not in the sense of being absolutely precise by modern standards, but in the sense of making good its claims and achieving that measure of focused truth at which its authors aimed.

The truthfulness of Scripture is not negated by the appearance in it of irregularities of grammar or spelling, phenomenal descriptions of nature, reports of false statements (for example, the lies of Satan), or seeming discrepancies between one passage and another.
For what its worth, I'd be prepared to sign up to that statement (with some reservations about one point only).

But I'd also recognise also that I was interpreting some of the articles differently from the way the original writers intended - or some of them anyway, I suspect that there is deliberate ambiguity in some of the articles - for example the one about creation and the flood which says that science cannot overturn the Bible's teaching on creation, but does not say what that teaching is, and so allowed both young earth creationists and sensible people to sign the original document [Biased] - an almost Anglican fudge.
 
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
Thanks ken. I'm not in DH a lot and hadn't read that before. I'm giving it some study and thought. Initially, the area that strikes me as well worth discussing is this one

quote:
Article III.

We affirm that the written Word in its entirety is revelation given by God.
We deny that the Bible is merely a witness to revelation, or only becomes revelation in encounter, or depends on the responses of men for its validity.
That raises quite a lot of questions in my mind, as well as a fair measure of agreement. But it's late and I'm out for most of tomorrow, so maybe I'll write Thursday.
 
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
ken

After reflection. I think my central understanding of scripture - which I believe is a high view - is reflected in this excerpt from a very recent post of mine on the Noah's Flood thread.

"Creation is a reliable witness examined by unreliable enquirers. A high view of scripture says pretty much the same about scripture, despite the fallibilities of its human authors and editors."

Spelling that out, I believe that scripture is a Divinely inspired and reliable message, mediated to fallible people via the witness of fallible people. And that mediation is intentionally helped by the Divine inspirer, through the work of the Holy Spirit. That actually seems to me to be a reasonable view of the meaning of 2 Tim 3:16

"16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."

The little "is" is worth a comment. It doesn't say "was" God-breathed, which is I think the implication of inerrancy arguing - or maybe infalliblity arguing - or maybe both? It says to me that the process in ongoing when we read, or hear.

Looking back at the extract I quoted above, and looking at the whole document you referenced, I really don't get this sense of the vital "dunamis" of the Holy Spirit in the way scripture is conveyed to us and works within us. Without that eternal and present-in-time "dunamis" I am concerned that scripture may be reduced to "only words", both to those who believe and those who don't.

Not that the words are not inspiring - I find that I am inspired by reading them. But that notion that the "God-breathed inspiration" somehow inheres to the words themselves strikes me as misleading about what is actually going on.

We have preserved the words in Christianity because of our abiding belief that they are used by God specially to communicate Himself, and the Truth of Himself, to us.

Not the whole Truth. But as John's Gospel puts it, "given so that we may believe ... and in believing may have life in His name".

ken, I'm right at the edge of what I can express coherently here. I'm hoping that what comes from the keyboard to you is a decent communication. I'm only too aware of its fallibility.
 


© Ship of Fools 2016

Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classicTM 6.5.0